Reading Crisis in California, Ed-Reform in Indiana,
Civics Education, Charters, Politics,
Civics Education, Charters, Politics,
READING CRISIS: IT'S POVERTY, STUPID
California’s Reading Crisis: Why Aren’t U.S. Kids Reading Well?
Why are so many kids struggling with reading? The vast majority of students' reading difficulties are due to lack of opportunities...before they even get to school. Students who grow up in poverty deal with out-of-school factors which contribute to lowered achievement. David C. Berliner lists seven such factors which get in the way of achievement.
(1) low birth-weight and non-genetic prenatal influences on children;Until we can successfully eliminate or reduce the shameful rate of childhood poverty in the United States we'll continue to have an economic/racial achievement gap. No amount of charter schools, testing, school closings, vouchers, or other ed "reform" will change that.
(2) inadequate medical, dental, and vision care, often a result of inadequate or no medical insurance;
(3) food insecurity;
(4) environmental pollutants;
(5) family relations and family stress;
(6) neighborhood characteristics;
(7) extended learning opportunities, such as preschool, after school, and summer school programs that can help to mitigate some of the harm caused by the first six factors.
But in order to learn how to read it’s important to look at other areas in a child’s life.
If a child doesn’t have access to good health care and they are sick and hungry, they probably aren’t going to learn to read well.
THE DANIELS-PENCE ED-REFORM IN INDIANA
A telling story of school ‘reform’ in Mike Pence’s home state, Indiana
Carol Burris, the Executive Director of the Network for Public Education has researched the ed-reform debacle in Indiana. This is the first of a three part series.
Daniels, who was governor from 2005 to 2013, would earn national recognition for his methodical and persistent undermining of public schools and their teachers in the name of reform.
Pence would follow Daniels as governor, pushing privatization even further. Pence would award even more tax dollars to charter schools and make Indiana’s voucher program one the largest in the country.
Klipsch would start and run a political action committee, Hoosiers for Economic Growth (a.k.a. Hoosiers for Quality Education), that would play a major role in creating a Republican majority in the Indiana House to redistrict the state to assure future Republican control.
A NATION OF IGNORANCE
We Urgently Need Civics Education
Yes, we do!
The decreased focus on civics coincides with No Child Left Behind. No surprise there...
A functioning democracy depends on an informed citizenry, including baseline knowledge of societal laws and institutions. Bafflingly, many schools no longer teach children how our government works, and what basic rights Americans are guaranteed.
Between 2001 and 2007, 36 percent of American school districts decreased focus on social studies and civics, according to a study by George Washington University’s Center on Education Policy. By 2006, just 27 percent of 12th graders were proficient in civics and government, said the National Center for Education Statistics.
PRIVATIZATION: CHARTERS
Schools Choosing Students: How Arizona Charter Schools Engage in Illegal and Exclusionary Student Enrollment Practices and How It Should Be Fixed
The American Civil Liberties Union has issued a report about the charter industry in Arizona. They discovered that [surprise!] charter schools have found ways to avoid the accountability forced upon public schools. This is worth examining carefully.
The analysis focused on whether charter schools:
• Discourage the enrollment of students who don’t have strong grades or test scores
• Set an enrollment limit on students with special education needs or have questions in their enrollment documents that may suppress the enrollment of these students
• Discourage or preclude the enrollment of students with disciplinary records
• Have questions in their enrollment documents that may have a chilling effect on non-English speaking parents and students
• Discourage or preclude immigrant students from enrolling by requiring them to provide Social Security numbers or other citizenship information
• Require students and parents to complete pre-enrollment requirements, such as essays, interviews or school tours
• Refuse to enroll students until their parents commit to volunteer at the school or donate money to the school
• Require parents to pay impermissible fees that create barriers to enrollment
• Present other barriers for enrollment or continued enrollment
Some of these exclusionary policies violate state and/or federal laws. The fact that so many Arizona charter schools’ enrollment policies and procedures contain plain legal violations demonstrates a clear failure of accountability. The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools authorizes and governs the vast majority of charter schools. The agency is responsible for ensuring that charter schools follow all laws and abide by the terms of their charter contracts. It is concerning that they have missed these violations of the law, most of which are publicly posted on schools’ websites or written into other widely available documents like student handbooks.
Though similar issues may be occurring within district schools, the ACLU of Arizona chose to focus its research on charter schools after hearing from several parents whose children were denied enrollment or faced barriers to enrollment at charter schools across Arizona.
UNQUALIFIED!
Republican Senator exposes Trump's clueless and wildly unqualified judicial nominee
The Trump administration has nominated candidates to federal judicial positions who are blatantly unqualified. This, for example...
The administration has also appointed cabinet members who want to destroy the department they are in charge of, or have absolutely no idea ("oops") what their department does.
When we talk about unqualified cabinet members we can't forget Betsy DeVos...
Trump education pick painted by Dems as unqualified
This is a good time to remind everyone that the current Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is just as unqualified as the nominee for judge in the previous clip.
- She has no education background.
- She has no experience in public education, either as a student, parent, or teacher.
- She knows absolutely nothing about what goes on in a public school.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, forced DeVos to admit that she has never led an organization akin to the Education Department, and has never used any of the financial aid products she will offer to students as head of it.
"So you have no experience with college financial aid or management of higher education," Warren said.
DeVos was also pressed on civil rights laws dealing with students with disabilities, saying early in the hearing implementation should be left up to the states.
Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire circled back to DeVos near the end of the hearing, informing her the law was a federal statute.
"Federal law must be followed when federal dollars are in play," DeVos said.
"So were you unaware when I just asked you about the (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) that it was a federal law?" Hassan asked.
"I may have confused it," DeVos said.
Require Ed. Secretary Betsy DeVos to Teach in a Public School
Betsy DeVos and any corporate reformer who impacts school policy should be required to spend at least a month each year teaching in a public school classroom.
DeVos just attended Gov. Jeb Bush’s ExcelinEd meeting in Nashville. Let Jeb Bush and his corporate friends and politicians who drive corporate reform also teach for a month.
None of these individuals understand the problems they have created in the classroom. If they taught a class for a month they would see firsthand what they have done.
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